TOKYO - Just hours after North Korea's
provocative series of missile launches, Japan has
reacted by banning the docking of the
Mangyongbyon-92, a ferry that shuttles between
Wonson in North Korea and Niigata, and which is
the main direct link between the two countries.

As of Wednesday morning, the ship was
anchored in the Sea of Japan about two kilometers
off Niigata prefecture.

Also on Wednesday
morning, the United Nations Security Council held
an emergency, closed meeting to discuss the issue,
after a

request to do so by Japan's
ambassador to the UN, Kenzo Oshima. The request
followed an emergency meeting of Japan's national
security council, convened by Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi.

Additional Japanese
sanctions are in the pipeline. Chief Cabinet
Secretary Shinzo Abe said "Japan will take any
kind of sanctions we can" against North Korea,
including economic and financial sanctions. Japan
also plans to bring up the issue at the Group of
Eight (G8) summit to be held in St Petersburg
later this month, Abe said.

North Korea
staged a series of missile tests in the early
hours of July 5, which was still July 4,
Independence Day, in the US. One of the missiles
launched was the Taepodong-2 long-range missile,
which some claim can hit the western extremities
of the US. It fizzled out, crashing into the Sea
of Japan less than a minute after launch.

The other half dozen launches were various
versions of shorter-range Scuds and Rodong
missiles, some of which have a range sufficient to
reach virtually any target in either South Korea
or Japan. They all fell harmlessly in the Sea of
Japan (which Koreans call the East Sea).

"North Korea has gone ahead with the
launch despite international protests," Abe said.
"That is regrettable from the standpoint of
Japan's security, the stability of international
society, and non-proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. This is a grave problem in terms of
peace and stability not only of Japan but also of
international society. We strongly protest against
North Korea."

Meanwhile, Japan's Foreign
Minister Taro Aso was consulting by telephone with
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The two
agreed that the UN Security Council should take up
the issue.

Washington denounced the
launches as a "provocation" soon after they were
confirmed. "You're going to see a lot of
diplomatic activity here in the next 24-48 hours,
said National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. US
anti-missile systems based in Alaska, California
and at sea were on alert but not activated.

Japan and the US had warned in recent
weeks that a Taepodong-2 launch would violate
Pyongyang's self-imposed 1999 moratorium on
ballistic missile tests, a 2002 agreement with
Japan, and also its implicit agreement in the
six-party nuclear talks last year. Pyongyang had
claimed, however, that its moratorium on ballistic
missile tests no longer applied as it was no
longer in direct talks with Washington.

While stepping up diplomatic efforts to
rally international pressure on Pyongyang to halt
its preparations, Japan had threatened to impose
economic sanctions in close cooperation with the
US if the Taepodong-2 was launched, with or
without a sanctions resolution of the United
Nations Security Council.

Even before
Wednesday's missile tests, Japan and the US
reportedly had already begun discussions on a
prospective Security Council resolution harshly
condemning such action. Foreign Minister Aso said
recently that it would be "inevitable" for the
Security Council to consider imposing sanctions on
Pyongyang if a launch went ahead.

But it
remains to be seen how much support Japan and the
US can garner. When Pyongyang test-launched a
Taepodong-1 missile over Japan's air space in
1998, the Security Council only issued a statement
to the press - not a binding resolution or even a
chair's statement - expressing concerns. That was
because China objected to discussing the matter in
the Security Council.

However, this time
China may agree to take up the issue because it
must be aware of the seriousness of the situation
and because of its position as the chair of the
six-party nuclear talks. But Beijing's support for
sanctions appears unlikely. Among the participant
countries in the talks, China, Russia and South
Korea have advocated a softer approach to
Pyongyang, while the US and Japan have taken a
harder line.

China and Russia appear
unlikely to agree to economic sanctions against
Pyongyang. Because of this prospect, Japan and the
US have been poised to cooperate in imposing
economic sanctions of their own, even without a UN
resolution. Japan has already passed the necessary
bills to do so on its own.

In 2004, Japan
revised the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Law
to allow the government to halt trade and block
cash remittances to North Korea - or to any other
country, without a UN resolution. Japan also
enacted a law that year that authorizes the
government to ban the docking of North Korean
ships, or ships that have visited North Korea, at
Japanese ports. The Mangyongbyon-92 ferry had been
widely considered to be among the most likely
targets.

Pyongyang has often warned that
economic sanctions would be tantamount to a
"declaration of war". To be sure, North Korea
would suffer if Japan went that far. But the
impact of the Japanese punishment would be limited
unless other nations, especially China and South
Korea, join in the sanctions.

Until 2002,
Japan was North Korea's second-largest trading
partner after China, facilitated in part by the
large ethnic-Korean community in Japan. However,
the two-way trade has shrunk considerably in
recent years, reflecting increasingly tense
relations. Japan has fallen behind China, South
Korea and Thailand.

Japan now appears very
likely to accelerate work on implementing recently
enhanced security arrangements with the US and
bilateral cooperation on a missile defense system.
In April 1996, then prime minister Ryutaro
Hashimoto and then US president Bill Clinton
issued a joint security declaration in Tokyo
reaffirming the importance of the bilateral
security alliance in the post-Cold War era. The
next year, Japan and the US adopted new defense
cooperation guidelines to flesh out the
declaration.

Beginning in May 1999, Japan
set about enacting laws needed to put these
agreements into effect. The government initially
faced opposition the Diet (Japan's parliament).
But the increased sense of crisis among many
Japanese over threats posed by North Korea
smoothed the way for passage, helped by
provocations from Pyongyang.

Heading the
list of provocations was the multi-stage
Taepodong-1 missile the North sent without warning
over Japan into the northern Pacific in August
1998. Also, two North Korean spy ships were
spotted in March 1999 in Japanese territorial
waters off the Noto Peninsula, central Japan. In
December 2001, a North Korean spy ship blew itself
up and sank after a fire fight with Japan Coast
Guard patrol boats in waters off the Amami
Islands, Kagoshima prefecture.

North
Korea's 1998 Taepodong-1 missile launch also
spurred Tokyo to begin joint technological
research with Washington on a missile defense
system the following year. In December last year,
the Koizumi government formally committed to the
joint development of a new sea-based interceptor
missile, called the Standard Missile-3 (SM3), as a
main pillar of the US-led system. The joint
development cost is estimated at a maximum of $2.7
billion, with Japan shouldering up to $1.2 billion
and the US paying the rest.

Japan also
decided in late 2003 to introduce a defensive
system, using existing interceptor missiles, by
2007. Well over 100 Patriot Advanced Capability 3,
or PAC3, surface-to-air missiles will be procured
by the end of fiscal 2010. PAC3 missiles are
intended to hit incoming missiles at an altitude
of up to 20 kilometers that have escaped missiles
launched from Japanese destroyers.

In July
last year, Japan revised the Self-Defense Forces
law to allow the Defense Agency chief to order
emergency missile interceptions without waiting
for approval from the prime minister and the
cabinet. Since North Korean missiles would reach
Japanese territory in about 10 minutes, the
defense chief could not afford to follow normal
procedures.

On June 23, Japan and the US
signed an agreement to formally begin the joint
development of an advanced SM3. And recently, the
Bush administration reportedly notified Tokyo that
it would deploy PAC3 missiles at a base in Okinawa
by year's end. The deployment will be the first
time the surface-to-air missiles have been
installed to defend US forces in Japan from
possible North Korean missile attacks.

On
June 22, a US Navy ship intercepted a medium-range
missile warhead above the earth's atmosphere off
Hawaii in the latest test of the US missile
defense program. The US said the test had been
scheduled for months and was not prompted by
indications that North Korea was planning to test
launch a long-range missile. The Japanese
destroyer Kirishima practiced tracking the target,
marking the first time that a Japanese Aegis
destroyer had participated in a US interception
test.

Hisane Masaki is a
Tokyo-based journalist, commentator and scholar on
international politics and economy. Masaki's
e-mail address is yiu45535@nifty.com.